


might have been truly happy

by pepperfield



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Implied Dan Lewis/Anne Weying, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Other, Parent-Child Relationship, Rebuilding, building a life at the end of the world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-04 22:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16798669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pepperfield/pseuds/pepperfield
Summary: Venom’s already on him about his health enough as it is, unhappy about him going out on runs all the time.Because you always find trouble, somehow.You used to like looking for trouble.That was when I could still eat it.The world ends, but life doesn't.There's nowhere to go but forward.





	might have been truly happy

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have much to say except that I'm sorry about this. Title once again comes from The Princess Bride: _You truly love each other, and so you might have been truly happy._
> 
> Please let me know if you have questions or concerns! Thanks for reading!

There’s a beacon on the other side of the bridge. 

**Don’t trust it, Eddie** , Venom whispers, weightless and hidden in the depths of Eddie’s chest, insinuated between his ribs and around his lungs, always, always. 

“Of course not, love.” He watches the light at the end of the road for a moment. It doesn’t look like fire. A camping lantern, perhaps. Plenty of batteries still work, even now, seven years out. You just need to know where to look for them. Abandoned department stores with white floors and no windows, pale mannequins torn apart and left scattered among the children’s clothes and lawn ornaments and useless electronics. Plastic storage boxes from empty houses, stashed away in the hall closet among a tangle of cords and extra parts. Sometimes schools, community centers, though the risk of running through someone else’s territory isn’t usually worth the trouble.

The light moves closer through the darkness and the mist, and Eddie rests a hand on his knife as he approaches. 

**Dinner?** The thing at the other end of the bridge looks mostly humanoid, but Eddie doesn’t relax his posture as the distance shrinks.

“Probably not tonight. You know I’ve been on that rabbit and low-sodium green bean diet recently.”

**Yes, and it’s disgusting. Why do humans always insist on setting their meat on fire?**

Eddie laughs instead of answering. They’ve been having this same back-and-forth long enough that it might as well be a lullaby, a slice of domestic comfort in the wasteland. “You want salad instead? Lou’s carrots are almost ready.”

**Better than that canned shit you keep eating.**

By the time Eddie makes it halfway down the bridge, the fog has cleared enough that he can make out the general shape of the person walking toward him.

Christ, it’s just a kid. Barely older than sixteen, seventeen, from Eddie’s guess. Only would’ve been about ten when it all went down. There’s a surge of what feels like pity, before it’s replaced by the constant low-level wariness that sits under their skin at all times. 

**Be careful. He is young, but he is probably faster than us.**

“Are you calling me slow?”

**Focus, you fool.**

“I know, I know, don’t worry.”

Eddie steps close enough that he can be seen in the dim halo of light. He raises a hand and the kid startles, almost flailing his lantern into Eddie’s face. He’s holding a meat cleaver in his other hand, and he has a large scar across the left side of his jaw that looks like a bite mark. Must have been an unfortunately close encounter with a traveler.

“Uh, h-hey! I’m Yusuf, you’re the first person I’ve seen in two weeks. I’ve been on the road for- oh, shit,” the kid says as he fumbles the cleaver in his hand while trying to put it away in the holster at his side. He’s smart enough to let it drop before picking it back up, but he glances up anxiously at Eddie while doing so. Still, too trusting. It could be a ploy, but he doesn’t feel like a threat. He just looks like a child.

**Why is he putting his weapon away? We could be murderers or bandits.**

“First tip, kid, don’t put the knife away. I could be a murderer or bandit.”

**That’s plagiarism, Eddie. Shame on you.**

“O-oh, I just- I guess I didn’t think about that, sorry,” Yusuf says, taking the cleaver back out. His hands are calloused and covered in more scars. He might not have any sense of stranger danger, but he’s certainly seen his share of fights. Strange. “I, uh. I haven’t been outside much.” Eddie raises an eyebrow, and even Venom feels intrigued.

“Were you hiding in a bunker or something?”

“Nah, I was in the middle of nowhere for a long time? Living with my grandpa? But he- he’s dead now, so. I thought, you know. Might as well see if I could find some other people to join up with.” He gives Eddie a hopeful look, and Eddie mentally groans. It’s a wonder he’s still alive, trusting the first random man he comes across. There must not be anyone else left in the world that he knows.

 **Too naive. Like he was spawned yesterday. He’ll die on the road, Eddie.** From Venom, that’s basically a plea to adopt the poor kid. Eddie shakes his head and Venom hisses quietly in his skull.

Great, overly attached already. His other always was soft on children.

**Learned it from you.**

_Jeannie isn’t going to like this._

**The boy is young, fit. He holds his stupid meat knife like he knows how to use it. She will put him to use.**

“You’re such a softie,” Eddie mutters, ignoring the confused look Yusuf sends his way. He takes a breath before turning and walking back the way he came, pausing just once for the kid to catch up to him. “Look, I don’t know how else to say this, but you probably would’ve been better off just staying holed up in your house. If you made it this long already, why not just stay there?”

“I couldn’t. The farm got overrun. I’m- I got real good at killing them. The aliens. But a nest hatched too close by and I had to get out before they got me too.”

“Do you have any other skills?”

“I’m pretty good at hunting and farming now? And I know a little about hydroelectricity. We used to have a water wheel, and I could probably figure out how to hook one up again.”

Alright, so he could be a useful and productive member of society. Jeanette will probably not kill Eddie over this.

**See? This infant will be a good investment.**

Eddie sighs. At this point, both Venom and his conscience would have his head if he let the boy go off on his own. “Alright. Come on, then. I’ll bring you to the boss; let her decide what to do with you.”

Yusuf has the good sense not to talk while they’re in the open, and he switches the lantern off once they hit a stretch of road that Eddie recognizes. It’s close to an hour before they make it back to the gates of Wildhurst, and by then they’ve learned that Yusuf certainly knows how to move like a hunter when he needs to. There’s no sign of any travelers on the way back to camp, which means Eddie makes it through another day without putting his aging muscles through the burden of a hard, lung-straining sprint. Venom’s already on him about his health enough as it is, unhappy about him going out on runs all the time.

**Because you always find trouble, somehow.**

_You used to like looking for trouble._

**That was when I could still eat it.**

Ana and Carter are at the gate tonight, and they both sigh when they see that Eddie’s caught another stray.

“This is the third time this month, Eddie.”

“I know! But they’ve all been good calls so far, right? Sam’s been really helpful with repairs. And Alisa’s great with the younger kids.”

“Did you at least bring us back some food, too?” Carter asks.

 **Food isn’t the word for it** , Venom says, disgusted.

“Of course I did! C’mon, you know I always deliver.” Eddie leans against the metal gate, peering over the reinforced steel sheets bolted to the lower half. The whole fence has been bolstered this way, more to keep out wandering humans than travelers. The refurbished turrets on the stone columns and the roof of the guard house are what keep the travelers away.

“Fine,” Ana says, rolling her eyes fondly when Eddie makes a sad face. She cracks the door open and gestures for them to come in. “Sorry, kiddo, I’ve gotta take your weapons for now.” 

Yusuf glances at Eddie for guidance, and he nods, so the kid takes off his backpack. But instead of taking a weapon out, he removes a smaller leather bag, then puts his cleaver inside his backpack and hands the whole thing over. “It’s, uh, mostly weapons?”

Ana takes it with a bemused look, then shrugs. “Okay, then. You’ll get them back later. Jeanette’s in her office. Good luck.”

“Thanks,” Eddie says dryly. Yusuf scampers after him as they head deeper into their camp - and he can’t stop thinking of it as a camp, even though they’ve been here for close to two years now. Some things never truly stop being transient.

Jeanette set up her space inside the abnormally large office of the Wildhurst athletic center, and that’s where they find her now, reading over their list of rations again, no doubt. Kurt does the numbers for the whole camp, and he’s never wrong, but she can’t help obsessively checking them anyway, just for the peace of her own mind. Sometimes Eddie wonders what she would be like if they could ever find some measure of guaranteed calm and safety. Would she finally let go of some of the weight she carries for all of them? Or would it undo her completely - has she lived so long in this new world that she needs the wild and the terror to survive? 

“Hey, Jeannie,” he says, trying to keep casual. 

“Don’t take that tone with me, Eddie,” she says without looking up from her desk. “Because it means you’ve adopted another hobo again, and you know I don’t have time for that shit.”

**We are all hobos now? None of you has a permanent home. Not really.**

“I mean, yeah, but Jeanette’s talking about outsiders. Specifically the ones you keep asking me to bring home, darling.”

Yusuf glances at him in confusion, and Eddie just shakes his head, gesturing for him to step forward. 

“I couldn’t just leave him out there. Any longer and some asshole would’ve killed him and like eaten his organs or some shit.”

**That...sounds like us. We’re that asshole.**

“No, we’re not. Bad guys only, remember?” Eddie mutters, and before Yusuf can start to regret being taken in by a man who has clearly lost his mind, Jeanette slams her pen down and finally looks up. Her face immediately does a complex motion that looks like it means “are you fucking kidding me?” Stress has carved permanent lines into her brow, but they seem to deepen.

“Jesus, Eddie, a kid?” 

“I’m almost eighteen,” Yusuf pipes up. When they all turn to look at him, he backtracks. “In eight months.”

“I brought him _because_ he’s a kid. No family. Barely even seventeen, Jeanette. What kind of dicks would we be if we left him out there to die alone?”

**Bad guys.**

_Exactly, love._

They stare each other down while Yusuf shifts his weight from foot to foot. Jeanette has about 30% more white hair than she did when he met her five years ago, and he knows he’s not faring much better. The new world hasn’t been kind to Eddie’s roguish good looks and his Troubled and Sleep-Deprived charm.

**Don’t think that.**

“I promise I’ll pull my weight,” Yusuf says, breaking through the dead silence. “I know a lot about farming and medicinal plants and stuff now, and I’m really good at fighting aliens. I get that it’s a risk to trust me, but I wouldn’t be- I’m not going to be a liability. I swear. And if I am, then I’ll leave. No hard feelings or anything. I just...wanted to be not so alone for a little while.”

Jeanette finally looks him over, taking in his scars and too-short pants and untamed curls. She doesn’t say anything, but Eddie can tell she’s thinking about Sara. About the way she shot up like a weed around her fifteenth birthday, and how her clothes always got torn up when she went out scavenging.

About the way her blue eyes looked, staring lifeless and empty up at the cloud covered sky, until her mother could close them for her one last time.

Eddie starts thinking about losing Hannah that way, and almost wants to retch. He doesn’t know which of them is reacting this way until Venom growls at him, **Don’t. Hannah will never come to harm while we are alive. Breathe, darling. Just breathe.**

Right. Venom is right. They would both sooner die before letting anyone touch their child. And they would kill anyone in their way before dying.

“Fine. Tomorrow. We’ll put you on a test run,” Jeanette says, breaking Eddie out of his own drowning thoughts. “Show us you can earn your keep here.” She’s using her tough voice, but Eddie knows that unless Yusuf somehow manages to burn the camp down, she’s probably already going to let him stay.

“ _Yes_ ,” and Yusuf fist-pumps before straightening up. “I won’t let you down, ma’am.”

“Yeah, alright. C’mon, I’ll bring you to Artie; he’ll find you a temporary place to stay.”

**I told you it would work out.**

Eddie cracks his back and follows behind the other two. “Yeah, you say that every time, but one day we’re going bring back the one dickwad who cut Jeannie off on the highway before the arrival, and she’ll shoot us on sight.”

“You know it, Brock,” Jeanette says as she leads Yusuf from the room. “Don’t test me anymore.”

“Love you too, boss.” Venom makes a disgruntled noise deep under Eddie’s collarbones, and he shakes his head. “Oh, c’mon, you know I don’t mean it like that. You’re the only one for me.” Yusuf trades a quick glance with Jeanette, who is already pushing out of the door.

“Eddie talks to himself,” she explains curtly, readjusting the gun on her hip. “You’ll get used to it.”

Yusuf looks at him with nervous energy- no, that’s not quite right. He isn’t nervous. He looks concerned, if anything. Eddie suddenly thinks of Dan, and his kind eyes, and his patient smile. They look nothing alike, but there’s something about the way he holds himself that feels like Dan. It catches like a hook right between Eddie’s lungs.

“Is he okay?” the kid asks Jeanette as they leave, who just shakes her head and says, “We all have our ways of coping.”

They head toward Artie’s, leaving Eddie and Venom blessedly alone for a moment, so he can box up those memories. Tonight isn’t a good time to get maudlin.

Eddie goes to drop off his supply haul before he heads home for the night. After turning the goods over, he’s walking slowly back when a small figure darts out from the makeshift school slash training center. He pretends he doesn’t see her for long enough that she can launch herself at him, and then he twists aside so she ends up only catching the sleeve of his jacket.

“Aw, come on! I almost had you.”

 **She’s faster now** , Venom says approvingly. **She takes after me.**

“Yeah, her appetite sure takes after yours.”

Hannah rolls her eyes at the comment. “Mr. Brock.”

“Miss Weying-Lewis,” he replies, grinning when she breaks into a smile. She has Anne’s eyes, Anne’s nose, but Dan’s dark hair and his smile. Sometimes it strains Eddie’s heart to see so much of her parents in her. “How is our favorite daughter in the whole wide world?”

“You guys only have one, stupid,” she says, laughing when he scoops her into a hug. She presses her face against his neck before he lets her go and she marches alongside him as they head back to their house. Venom used to love bouncing her in their tendrils like some kind of hammock/slingshot when she was younger. She’s grown far too fast, if you ask Eddie. She comes up almost to his shoulders now.

“You can’t be sure of that. For all you know, your other parent and I had tons of kids before you came along. Hundreds of them.”

**Now there’s a thought. Did you want another baby, Eddie?**

“It’s probably not a good time to bring more spawn into the world, babe.”

“Ugh, that’s so freaking gross, dad, I don’t want to hear about you and V having babies!” Hannah shrieks, pummeling his arm as they walk down the street. Lou and Red are tending to the garden when they pass, even though evening is well into night by now, and they wave their dirt-covered hands in greeting.

“Don’t you remember when you asked me for a younger sister? Did you change your mind?”

“A sym-sister _would_ be really cool. But nah, I want a dog now. If you see one, I call dibs!”

“If I see a dog, I’m keeping it for myself, sorry. You can have a pet skunk instead.”

She makes a face, and runs on ahead. “A skunk can’t learn tricks!” she calls over her shoulder.

Hannah was born about three years before the arrival. Eddie had loved her from the moment he first held her; Venom had loved her long before she had even been born. They used to hover around Anne during her pregnancy, asking Dan nervous questions about everyone’s health. After losing Anne, Eddie and Venom had stepped in to help Dan any way they could, finding a comfort in each other that no one else really understood.

And then they’d lost Dan too. So as Hannah’s only remaining family, parenting duties fell to them. It’s the most important mission they’ve ever taken on.

Hannah is chattering about something that happened while making generators with Emile today as Eddie lets them into the house. They light the foyer lamps together and then she’s off to the kitchen, excited to use the potatoes that were dug up earlier today. Eddie moves to follow her, but takes just a second to look at one of the photographs hung up in the front hall. Dan and Anne are in the center, holding a two-year old Hannah, both of them laughing at something Eddie must have been saying. He’s standing next to Anne, with a black scarf wrapped around his neck, despite his light hoodie and the sunlight streaming around them. If someone were to look very closely, they might notice the two opalescent eyes peeking out from the loop of Eddie’s scarf.

It’s one of the few complete family photos he still owns.

\--

Dawn breaks like a surprise, spilling red light over the rooftops as it does every day, even after the end of all things.

Eddie wakes early, because he’s on a morning run today, after working nights for a few days in a row. His bed feels so empty without Venom physically filling the space beside and around him, but he’s adjusted to the change by now. More or less.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” Eddie says through his yawn, and Venom gives him a lazy **hello, Eddie** back.

Hannah is still asleep by the time they’ve finished their morning tea, so they leave a kiss on her temple and lock the door behind them as they head toward the meeting spot.

Marni and Yusuf are already there, discussing the objective, and Shaw comes up a few minutes later. The goal today is to find some undamaged hose and copper wire, though Kurt is always hounding them to get more canning supplies. They’re quiet on their way out of Wildhurst, because travelers are much more active in the day. Eddie hasn’t seen many recently, but he also hasn’t wandered too far from their mapped territory as of late, and they’ve cleared and booby-trapped the two mile stretch surrounding the camp. 

It’s a longer walk they’re taking, out to a mostly uncharted neighborhood still littered with some of the rotting dead. The diseases and microbes that the travelers carried with them were just as devastating as the meteor storm that brought them to Earth in the first place. Venom had been busy enough trying keep Eddie alive, but had almost exhausted themself on the rest of their family. For many months after the arrival they would slip subtly back in to visit Hannah’s immune system, terrified that they hadn’t done enough to protect her from microscopic intruders.

The street they’re on turns slightly uphill, and Eddie can feel his knees complaining a bit, even though he’s more fit than he’s been most of his life. His joints don’t work quite as well as they used to. He’s getting creaky in his old age.

**Not old! You’re still perfect.**

“It’s okay, you don’t have to sugarcoat it. I’m pushing toward a senior citizen discount.”

 **Not yet. You are still young and beautiful, even if you aren’t spry** , Venom grumbles. **I’m sorry I can’t ease the ache.** He can feel their regret just as well as the cracking of his knees.

“I’m the one who should be sorry. You should trade up. Find yourself a newer model.”

**Don’t even joke about it. It’s you, or nothing. We go together.**

“Not together,” Eddie says to himself. Not at the end.

“Eddie, quit flirting with yourself and go give the newbie a hand,” Shaw teases, elbowing Eddie in the side before jogging off to join Marni on the right side of the street. 

Eddie and Yusuf circle around the first house on the left side, looking for traveler tracks, or signs of a recent nest, before breaking in as quietly as possible. There’s a good stash household supplies: candles and matches, a well-stocked medicine cabinet, a sturdy length of rope in the garage. They make their way through three more houses in this manner, taking only the most immediately useful items, and leaving the heavier things to be retrieved later, like a hefty vintage sewing machine and a collection of cast-iron pans. Venom encourages Eddie to take a look in one of the freezers, but he refuses, knowing there’s nothing but disappointment and maggots to be found.

Their supply run brings them to a fork in the road, one branch leading down a long driveway to a lone house. The other street is much more populated, so Eddie suggests they get the lone house out of the way first, and Yusuf readily agrees. The kid might have been living some sort of weird, hidden survivalist life before this, but he’s a quick study, and has good judgment. 

They head down the driveway to a large house with a partially collapsed roof, due to a huge tree branch falling through it sometime in the last couple of years. It seems pretty stable though, with the tree only sunken into the far back of the house, so they’ll chance it if the wall doesn’t break right away.

Eddie’s about to head for the door when a movement catches his eyes, and Yusuf grabs his forearm. They both look upwards.

From the other side of the roof slinks a traveler, stone gray and covered in vicious spines. A quadruped, so it’ll be a fast one, despite its hulking size, but hopefully not too smart. Its four orange eyes scan the ground, and Eddie realizes it hasn’t spotted them yet. His eyes dart back toward the way they just came: it’s the best route out, as far as he can quickly tell.

**There’s not a lot of time; we need to leave _now_.**

“Go,” he whispers to Yusuf from the corner of his mouth. “It hasn’t noticed us yet. Get out of here.”

Yusuf tugs at his sleeve to draw him away too, and they start inching away. Travelers have a much better sense of sound than sight, even with their many eyes, so if they can stay quiet long enough, they might be able to make a clean break. They make it halfway down the driveway before their luck gives out. A scattering of sparrows takes flight behind them at the same moment that the traveler swivels in their direction, and it pauses, clearly having sighted them.

“Go go go,” Eddie hisses, pushing Yusuf away from him, down the path as the traveler sprints across the roof. The kid’s no idiot; he takes off even though Eddie can see on his face that he wants to drag Eddie away with him. But someone needs to lead this fucker away from the camp. It’s coming toward him fast. Fuck.

Eddie knows better, he really does. But these days sometimes he forgets what’s real anymore, what’s in the here and now and not a remnant of the past, and so in the split second he waits for Venom to surround him, the traveler leaps down, close enough for him the feel the impact through the dirt. There’s no time for shock as his very human legs almost collapse, and no dark tendrils come shooting out to catch him.

Oh, of course. They can’t suit up anymore. 

_**Run.**_

Eddie does, but the traveler is already after him, storming along at a terrifying speed that they used to be able to outpace. He takes off in a sideways direction, trying to draw his hunter farther away from the others, but he can feel it gaining on him. His knife is in his hand, and when he feels its breath too close to his neck, he jerks to the side, trying to shake it long enough to get a hit in. It swipes him with one heavy leg, and he goes flying sideways, hitting the ground painfully.

Venom is boiling under his skin, but there’s nothing they can do except watch Eddie scramble back to his feet in time to barely dodge the next charge that comes at him. When it swerves back around to try and gouge him with the armored horns under its eyes, he manages to get enough of an opening to stab his knife between the plates along its abdomen. He’s hoping he got it right in an organ, and from its following scream, he might have.

Unfortunately, there’s no time to gloat, because it flails violently, trying to dislodge the knife from its side, and bowls Eddie over. He falls hard, and it goes with him, landing right on his leg with its spines out. He bites back the cry of pain that almost escapes his lips, and tries to make himself small as it gets unsteadily back to its feet. Eddie can’t reach any other weapons right now, so he does the next best thing and rips a spine back out of his calf, shoving it as hard as he can next to his knife. The traveler releases another howl and takes off into the backyard, crashing through the foliage and away.

 **You’re bleeding you’re hurt I let you get injured you could have died** , filters into his mind once the adrenaline and pure terror finally give way to other thoughts. He tries to stand, but the spines have his muscle pinned in such a way that it’s impossible to walk with them still in. He’ll have to take them out. 

Holding his breath, he reaches down and yanks them each out, one after another. Venom cries out miserably all the while.

“It’s okay, I’m okay,” he wheezes, frantically pressing his hands over the wounds as blood wells up faster and faster through the torn scraps of his jeans. The punctures are small but deep, and he’s not sure how much damage has been done.

**I can’t fix it, Eddie, I’m sorry! You need to get help. You’re going to lose too much blood.**

“Yeah. I know. I’ve just gotta get back to the group.” With shaking hands he holds his calf steady while climbing back to his feet. It only feels like he has four holes in his leg because he does. Not a big deal. He does his best to tighten a kerchief around his leg in hopes that it’ll staunch the bleeding. 

But he has to move, before the traveler comes back to finish him off.

 **I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry** runs though his mind like a burning litany, a final prayer to get him through just one more crisis. It’s all they can do for him now.

“It’s not you, sweetheart. I just forgot again.” His breath is coming out hard and every step is agonizing. He should stop talking out loud.

**It’s been almost two years, you need to remember by now!!**

_I know it’s been a while, but I’m not as sharp as I used to be, buddy._

**Bad excuse. You’re not even close to sixty yet. Keep running.**

He does, as well as he can. His feet smack too loudly against the pavement, and his leg feels somewhere between numb and on fire, but there’s no hope for him unless he can regroup. He’s probably trailed enough blood that he can be too easily followed to try hiding now. The others shouldn’t be too far back, and indeed, Marni and Yusuf already waiting in a defensive position against a house wall when he stumbles back onto the main street.

**Over there! Just a little farther.**

“Oh my god!” Marni is saying as he lurches toward them. Yusuf is already holding his cleaver out, as well as a bowie knife. “Fuck, is it-”

“Still out there; I only got it in the side,” he coughs at her, and she catches the brunt of his weight with her shoulder. Yusuf runs over to support his other side. 

“Shit, your leg looks bad.” She unhitches the walkie-talkie from her side and calls Shaw to come meet them.

“No, you guys should go on ahead. I’m not a small guy; I’ll slow you down.”

**Eddie, shut the hell up. You need them! They aren’t going to leave you.**

“Don’t be crazy,” Yusuf says, to Eddie’s surprise. “We can’t just abandon you. Besides, there’s only one of them, right?”

“Yeah, but it’s big. Pretty fast too, even with a couple of stab wounds.”

Eddie feels a little light-headed, but he knows he’s not mistaken in thinking that Yusuf is calculating the odds in his head as they help him limp forward.

“I can take it. Especially if you’ve already weakened it,” the kid says, like it’s his decision to make. Fuck, maybe it is. He looks like a beanpole, but his body is littered with more scars than even Shaw or Nicholas.

He doesn’t have a chance to answer before Shaw sprints up, arms out and ready to single-handedly lug Eddie back to camp if needed. Luckily, he just takes one side of Eddie’s weight away from Yusuf, freeing him up to walk ahead of them as a scout.

“Get your ass up, Eddie,” Shaw says as they start home. “We’re getting us home.”

They make it close to two-thirds back before a rustle in the trees in the distance alerts them to an approaching enemy. They silently agree to go with the plan they outlined while fleeing. Eddie is carried over to hide behind a large tree, while Yusuf steps up and out into the open. There’s no helping the rush of fear Eddie feels for him, but he stands with an otherworldly calm so still that it’s almost soothing. 

When the traveler bursts through the trees, the rest of them collectively hold their breaths as a reflex. It’s the same one as before, still injured and three times as angry. Yusuf’s hands tighten, and then they’re both moving. He dives to the right seconds before it reaches him with his wobbling gait, but he hasn’t fallen. In fact, he’s on his feet again by the time it lumbers close, and grabbing the sharp edge of one of its ridged plates for a handhold.

The kid wasn’t lying about his ability. With one quick movement, Yusuf lunges up and slams his cleaver in the soft junction between the traveler’s armored shoulder and back plates, hacking it half off. It releases an agonized roar and tries to gore him with its spines, but he’s already dashed away. With one limb injured, the traveler’s charge is even more unsteady and wild, and he outmaneuvers it toward a tree before dropping down and sticking his other knife deep into its unguarded underbelly.

Marni and Shaw are moving Eddie along again, so he doesn’t catch the tail end of that encounter, but from the abrupt end to the awful howling behind them, Yusuf must’ve ended it.

“Alright, I’ll give it to you, Eddie. The kid’s not half bad,” Marni says breathlessly. Eddie laughs against her shoulder while wincing all the while. 

**What did I tell you?**

“That he was a good investment. You really are an expert, babe.”

“Less talking, more walking, or this asshole’s gonna have sepsis before we make it past the county line,” Shaw mutters, tightening his hold around Eddie’s waist.

It takes almost ten minutes to get back to camp, and the moment they’re in range, Shaw has already called ahead on the walkie to get ready to open the gates. Yusuf stays a few paces behind the whole way, acting as lookout for any other travelers, but the way remains clear all the way home.

It’s when he sees the gates that Eddie finally feels enough relief to let go of some of the tension in his body. He’s been both keyed up and fucking exhausted the whole time, and now he’s beginning to crash.

**Eddie, hold on. Don’t let go.**

“Can’t,” he slurs, only barely aware of Marni barking at Yerin and Carter to get someone from medical. “ ‘m tired, sweetheart.”

**I know. I know, but you need to stay with me. Please.**

“Not with you. Not anymore.” He’s only half-conscious now. It must be shock setting in.

**Eddie, you stupid, fragile fleshsack, stop letting yourself die! Hannah will cry. Jeannie will kill you. And then Annie will do the same in the afterlife.**

God, he misses Anne. She really would be pissed if Eddie goes like this.

“Okay, Venom, stop calling me names. I’m here. ‘m here.”

“Eddie?” asks a voice he doesn’t quite recognize, as he’s passed into Carter’s arms. He can feel himself jostling and from far away, Sierra’s voice starts shouting orders to the rest of the team on medical today. “Is he going to be okay?” Yusuf, jogging after them, still brandishing two knives stained copper with traveler blood.

“He’ll survive. Go make yourself useful somewhere else,” Sierra snaps, already yanking gloves on as they carry him to the medical house. Eddie always admired her attitude toward healing.

He’s on the table now. His leg feels like shit. His shoulder hurts for no damn reason either. There’s a lot of noise around him. Words. Not ones meant for him to understand, thank god.

“Dad? Is that- dad! Marni, what happened?!”

Hannah. But someone must escort her away, because that’s the last he hears of his daughter’s voice before Sierra’s dumping saline over his stupid puncture wounds and he begins to drift. Mentally, physically, temporally.

He remembers the horde, the slaughter. His other half doing what they promised they would never do. The fire, and the ash afterwards. Eddie has only one more thought before he falls unconscious.

_I miss you, love._

**I’m sorry, Eddie. I miss you, too.**

\--

It’s not like his wounds are the worst he’s ever sustained, so Eddie is roused shortly after Sierra patches him up and then allowed to go back to sleep when they’re sure he won’t die on them. The second time he wakes, Hannah is sitting by his bed, and she forces him to eat some grapes and jerky for lunch, and then yells at him for ten minutes about being careless. He apologizes and they hug and cry, but he knows she’s still worried that he’s not taking his own safety seriously. Eddie doesn’t know how to tell her that he isn’t doing it on purpose. Not completely.

He’s still too woozy and tired to be released, so he falls back asleep for an afternoon nap in the medical bed.

The next time he wakes it’s a slow process, and he comes to while Sierra is replacing the bandage on his calf. His eyes are stuck closed, so he leaves them that way, just lying there and trying to come back to his senses.

**We’re in the medical house. On one of the good beds.**

_Wow, we’re real VIPs, huh?_

**All the energy you put into jokes should go toward recovering instead. Don’t give Hannah any more reason to worry.**

Speaking of Hannah, Eddie finally registers her voice explaining something. Her little hand is wrapped around his, and he almost squeezes it, but he doesn’t want to interrupt the conversation. 

“So Eddie adopted you?” Eddie hears Yusuf asking. He must be in the chair next to Hannah’s.

“Yeah, he and my bio-parents were best friends, and when they died he took me in. I mean, he was already kinda like a dad to me anyway.” Spoken with the bluntness of a ten-year-old.

“Is that, um. Who he’s always talking to?”

“Who, my mom and other dad? No, that’s...Dad was married,” Hannah tells Yusuf softly. Her grip on his hand tightens. “But they- they’re gone now. They died to protect us.”

**And I would do it again.**

_Please don’t remind me_ , Eddie thinks. He sends the thought out into the ether. There’s nothing on the other end of that connection anymore.

His mind fills in the gaps for him. **Sorry, Eddie.**

Sierra, redressing the wounds on Eddie’s leg, says, “It’s a little more complicated than that, but that’s the gist of it. He still talks to them sometimes, even though it’s been a few years. It’s just something he does to help get him through, y’know?”

“Shit. I didn’t know.”

“You’re new,” Hannah says matter-of-factly. “There’s a lot you don’t know yet, but that’s okay. You’ll learn.”

“I’ll try my best.”

“Thanks for helping to save my dad.”

“I mean, _I’m_ the one who owes _him_. I’d probably still be out there by myself if he didn’t feel bad for me.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Eddie rasps out, startling the two kids. Sierra just keeps taping gauze on his skin without missing a beat. He twiddles his fingers at her and she gives him a salute before continuing on calmly.

“Dad! Are you hungry?” It’s one of the first questions Hannah always asks him, probably as a holdover from when Venom would constantly talk about food. God, does he love their girl.

“Nah, honey, I’m okay.” She helps him prop his body up, and he gives Yusuf a tired grin. “I guess you passed the trial run, huh?”

Yusuf grins back. “I think it’s that ugly bear night light I brought back. Sierra really liked it.” She wordlessly points over at the wall socket near the floor, where it’s plugged in but turned off. They don’t run the generators during the day unless it’s absolutely necessary.

“I mean, what the doc says, goes. Sorry about the rough introduction. You sure showed you know your stuff, though. You weren’t kidding when you said you were good at killing them. Thanks for saving our hide.”

If Yusuf notices the weird pronoun slip, he doesn’t mention it. “I got a lot of practice on the farm,” he says bashfully, before standing. “I, uh, just wanted to make sure you were okay, but I should probably go. Jeanette said she had some jobs for me to get working on.”

“Alright, we’ll catch you later then. Good work today.”

Yusuf leaves the room after saying goodbye, and Sierra leaves as well after pinning the rest of his bandages in place. Eddie’s confined to bed rest for several more days.

When they’re alone, Hannah thumps her fist on his arm, looking upset. “Dad, you promised,” she says, and it breaks his heart how resigned she sounds.

“I know, Hannah. I did. And I screwed up.” He sighs, scrubbing at his face with his hands. He’s overdue for a shave again, and his eyes feel crusty and tired. He’s a total mess, but he needs to get it the fuck together for the last living person in the world that he loves.

**Make a new promise. We will be better, won’t we? If you can’t do it for me, Eddie, you need to do it for our child.**

Her eyes are slightly damp again. “I know it’s really hard, and you miss V, but you can’t leave me. You _can’t_.”

“I won’t, I swear.” He leans forward and takes her face in his hands so he can kiss her forehead. “I completely, 100% promise this time. No more stupid mistakes.”

She nods, and proceeds to tell him about her day before he got maimed and sent her into a panic. He relays the weirdest decoration he saw in each house, because she always likes hearing about creepy porcelain dolls and bad paintings. There’s time enough to listen to one more piece of new gossip about Ilana and Carter before Hannah has to go back to class.

“Oh, if you’re awake for good, Kurt and Jas left some work for you to do.” She reaches into her bag and pulls out a stack of papers and a pen for him.

“What? I’m injured! They’re seriously gonna still put me to work?”

“Dad, everyone knows you get really annoying if you don’t have anything to do. Just total up the number of turnips or whatever.”

Her friends come to collect her for electromagnetics class, and Eddie’s left to tally up their produce numbers for the week, as well as make shoddy math worksheets for the kids. At least he’s right by the window, and can enjoy both the sunlight and the sight of various community members walking past on their way to their posts and jobs.

The busywork starts blending together into a mindless haze, and Eddie finds himself talking to his spouse again, like he always does when he’s alone. It’s closing in on two years, and he still can’t think of himself as a widower.

**You were careless today, Eddie. I know you know by now.**

“Just because I know doesn’t mean I can’t live in denial.”

**But you’ve seen that denial weakens your instincts. You need to stop living in the past. You promised, remember?**

“...yeah, I did. You’re right.”

**I always am.**

“You should’ve known better than to leave me to my own devices. You know the kind of shit I get up to without you there to eat my not so good decisions.”

**It was the only way. We both knew.**

“Yeah, but I wish you hadn’t- no, that’s not true,” he mutters. “I’m glad you did it. I’m proud of you for protecting all those people, for saving all of us, but I wish you’d- why couldn’t we have gone together? Why did you have to leave me again?”

 **I’m sorry, my love** , the specter of Venom in the corner of his mind says. The ghost that still haunts the memory of every one of his living cells. **But we were heroic, weren’t we?** **We were good.**

“We were. We were perfect. You did so well, darling. But I should’ve been there with you. We should have been together. We’re one, remember?”

**I know. But I could never let you die. This was the best we could do.**

He touches a hand to his chest. If he focuses, he can pretend he can still feel the thrum of his other where his heart still lies, cracked open and bleeding. If he reaches down into the sunken depths of his memory, he can recall the weight of his soulmate resting against his chest, along his back, and through every nerve ending. 

Ten years. That’s all they had together, and now Eddie has to relearn how to be a person without the other half of his heart to complete him.

**I love you, Eddie. We’ll find each other again.**

Those are the last words Venom ever said to him. And even though he hears them every night before he falls asleep, he’s still starting to forget the sound of their voice. Ten years wasn’t enough. Fifty years wouldn’t have been either.

He knows the denial isn’t healthy. And he knows he can’t afford to slip up again. But, god, it’s hard to move on when the last thing he wants to do is let go of the only things that still remind him of his beloved.

He’ll have to, eventually. In fact, he’ll start trying. But not until tomorrow. Just one more night, that’s all he wants. One night, and fifty lost years.

\--

He gets a small parade of visitors throughout the day, ending with dinner delivered to his bedside. Hannah brings pajamas and a toothbrush over from their house and sets up in the med house with him after helping him and Ilana set up new sheets. She accidentally nods off beside him in the middle of reading her book out loud; he rearranges her so she won’t wake with a crick in her neck. Venom used to trickle out of their room to bundle her in her blanket when she did the same thing at home.

He dozes off as well, but wakes partway through the night, and continues reading by flashlight for twenty minutes longer, which is how Jeanette finds him. She looks even more tired than usual, and he accounts for probably at least a fourth of that. She likely hasn’t slept in about a day.

“So, the new stray is a pretty good addition, right?” he asks, knowing that she’s not really here to make small talk.

“So you’re three for three this month. Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Who, me? Jeannie, c’mon. I would never.”

She sighs, sounding more put-upon than she really is. “Just came to see if you were still alive.”

“You know me; I’m like a disease. You can’t get rid of me.”

“Good.”

“Wow, that- that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” She makes the slightest movement with her lips, willing to admit that he amuses her.

“Anyway,” she says. Her voice is hard, like it always is, because she can’t afford to be anything else, not when they all need her to be their north star, but her eyes are almost gentle. “You need to sleep. We’re going scouting south tomorrow, and the kids will need you here to entertain them.”

**She’s right. Please sleep now. I would tie you down myself, but.**

“You can’t make me do much of anything, anymore,” Eddie says, with the hint of a smile.

Jeanette knows he isn’t talking to her; she’s learned to read the difference in his tones by now. Still, instead of leaving, she takes another step forward and tosses something into his lap.

“It’s probably expired, but you’ve got a strong stomach. Get some rest.”

“Same to you, boss.”

He watches the line of her back as she walks out of the room. Never bending. For the briefest second, he imagines blonde hair instead of red. 

Hannah is curled up next to him, on his good side, so it’s hard to move his hands without jostling her, but he manages to pick up Jeanette’s gift to take a closer look at it. 

It’s a small chocolate square, wrapped up in gold foil. It’s a little squished on one side, and he has no doubt that it’s going to taste kind of off, but he smiles anyway.

**Chocolate! You better share.**

“You know I will.”

**Let’s save it for another time. When you need something sweet. Or just a reminder.**

“Whatever you want, darling.” He places the chocolate aside on the bedside table.

Before, whenever Eddie was feeling sentimental, as he often did, Venom used to indulge his romantic whims all the time. If Eddie wanted to hold hands, sometimes his other would wind thin, curling tendrils down around his palm and fingers until they were intertwined like two hands.

It’s one of the touches that he misses most.

“Goodnight, love. I’ll see you later.”

**Goodnight, Eddie. Take your time. I waited long enough to find you; I can wait longer to see you again.**

Outside, the sky is heavy and dark with the weight of tomorrow’s dawn. Eddie folds his hands together and waits for the sun to rise.


End file.
